SECRETARY KERRY: The war in Syria has now lasted for more than five years.
And right now I have to tell you, even with the success we had the other day at the table,
it doesn’t yet show the signs we want of burning out.
And that is why we are so focused on this political track.
If the international community and the Syrians themselves miss the opportunity now before
us to achieve that political resolution to the conflict, the violence, the bloodshed,
the torture, the images of children – women, children, the bombing, the anguish is going
to continue.
And all the talk that will take place here and has taken place to date will mean nothing
except an increase in the cynicism of people of the world who look to their leaders to
deliver.
The tragedy is that if this flounders, the call to jihad will increase.
And that is why the diplomatic initiative we launched in Vienna last year is so important.
The 20-plus member ISSG includes every major country with a direct stake in Syria.
Parties as diverse as Iran and Saudi Arabia sat at that table constructively trying to
move forward.
And they have agreed on a list of principles, unanimously reflected in the UN Security Council,
and these principles reflect the way toward a stable, sovereign, inclusive, united, nonsectarian
Syria that we all seek, but which the vast majority of people believe can never be achieved
with President Assad at its helm.
You cannot stop the war that way.
Yesterday we made progress advancing two of the major components of the UN Security Council
resolution: the burning need for humanitarian access not in months, not in weeks – now,
immediately.
And the trucks are lined up and the permissions are being granted and they should flow today
or tomorrow.
In the wee hours of Friday morning, we agreed that the sustained delivery of humanitarian
aid will begin this weekend, first to the areas where it is most urgently needed, and
then to all the people in need throughout the country, particularly in the besieged
or hard-to-reach areas.
And the UN has now said that the trucks are loaded, ready to go.
And we also established a task force, which has met already for the first time in Geneva
and will report regularly on the progress to be able to guarantee the delivery of this
aid.
The ISSG also agreed to implement a nationwide cessation of hostilities to begin in one week’s
time.
Why in a week?
Why not yesterday?
For the simple reason that the modalities have to be worked out and for the simple reason
that people have to be communicated to in order to not have it start with failure.
And this will apply to any and all parties in Syria with the exception of the terrorist
organizations Daesh and al-Nusrah.
Now, there is a lot of work to do before this effective cessation can commence, and to that
end, we have established another task force with Sergey Lavrov – who is here, the foreign
minister of Russia – and I will chair together with other ISSG members, and we will work
on the modality of how we deal with this.
And to date, the vast majority, in our opinion, of Russia’s attacks have been against legitimate
opposition groups.
And to adhere to the agreement that has been made we think it is critical that Russia’s
targeting change.
And the entire ISSG, including Russia, has agreed to work to make that happen.
Now, let me be very clear about this.
Foreign Minister Lavrov has said that we need to work together as a group to determine who
should be attacked, who is qualified as a terrorist, who isn’t.
And I will say bluntly that there is no way to properly put a humanitarian access as ambitious
as the one we’ve embraced in place, and there is no way to adequately deal with the
cessation of hostilities, unless we do sit down and work together on every aspect of
this from the political to the humanitarian to the military also.
And we are doing that now.
So we’re not approaching this with some sense of pie-in-the-sky hope.
We will work through where this targeting should take place, where it shouldn’t, how
we work together in order to be effective so we don’t drive people away from the table,
because obviously, if people who are ready to be part of the political process are being
bombed we’re not going to have much of a conversation.
So that’s what we’re working on.
And the Security Council Resolution has demanded that “all parties immediately cease any
attacks against civilians.”
That, too, has not happened to date.
And indeed, the violence by the regime, as we all know, went up.
Free-fall bombs are being used, which are not precise.
We all know civilians are being killed.
So we hope this week can be a week of change.
Now, some have argued that the reason humanitarian access has been denied and has – and there’s
been this bombing is because Assad and his allies, including Russia, might believe that
by defying the will of the international community, they can win the war.
That is a proposition that is being discussed.
If that is what Russia and Assad think, then I believe they would be missing the lessons
of the last five years.
The Syrians who have rejected Assad have endured four years of shelling, barrel bombs, gas,
Scud missiles, chemical attacks, torture; and they may be pushed back here or there,
but they are not going to surrender.
I don’t believe there’s anybody who believes they will.
And the countries that have supported Assad and the countries that have opposed him say
they’re both committed to continuing that.
That is not a recipe, obviously, for a resolution.
So it is critical for all of us to take advantage of this moment to make this cessation of hostilities
work.
And one thing I would say is that the more successful people are in standing up Assad,
at the same time, the more successful they will be in attracting more jihadis to the
fight.
That’s the perverse reality of what has happened there.
So whether one side or another has an advantage today, this conflict will still require a
political solution at some point in time in order to make peace, no matter what happens.
This is the moment.
This is a hinge point.
Decisions made in the coming days and weeks and few months could end the war in Syria
– or it could define a very difficult set of choices for the future.
Everyone here knows what we have to do to get this right.
Putting an end to the violence and the bloodshed is essential, but also providing Syrians with
the humanitarian aid they need is critical.
And ultimately, the end of this conflict will come when the parties agree on a plan for
a political transition that was accepted as the standard for this in 2012 in Geneva with
the Geneva communique.